Your legacy.
Their opportunity.
Why choose the GIPS Foundation to build your legacy?
Personalized Working with the GIPS Foundation allows you the opportunity to choose the type of student to invest in, with interests and aspirations that match your legacy.
Easy The GIPS Foundation makes starting a scholarship a simple process. Whether you are investing a few hundred dollars or a few million, the professional staff do the work, allowing you to enjoy the reward of creating opportunities for students.
Enriched donor experience The GIPS Foundation offers an experience for donors like no other. You are given the chance to meet your scholarship winners, learn about their plans and be part of their journey.
Safe and secure The GIPS Foundation's four-decade tradition of excellence offers peace of mind. You are investing in a trusted, reliable organization.
Recognized The GIPS Foundation is a nationally recognized charitable organization, setting the standard for others to follow. Our four-star foundation received the highest rating a charity can receive.
Building a Legacy Scholarship Fund

I often get questions about how to set up a scholarship fund that will benefit students.
Here at the GIPS Foundation, we have made this process uncomplicated for the donor. As we sit down to build the fund, I will ask several questions. Is the fund a reflection of a family or business value system? Or, is the fund to recognize the legacy of a loved one? What is the essence of this loved one? What was important to him/her? We try to capture the essence of this person or goals of the donor with the scholarship fund guidelines.
The next questions revolve around the applicant. What kind of student do you want to help? We use the statistics captured in our online scholarship system to show donors what kinds of students are successful at acquiring scholarships and perhaps, what types of students are underrepresented. Then we move into the mechanics of the fund. Is it the donor’s desire that the fund produce scholarships every year, forever? How much do you want to give in each scholarship award? When it is the donor’s desire to make the fund an endowed fund that will generate a scholarship every year, we share the following investment strategy:
Endowed Funds: The GIPS Foundation generally allocates 4% of the endowed fund value to the annual scholarship award. So, if it is the donor’s desire to create a scholarship that pays $1,000 each year, forever, the endowed fund value will need to be $25,000. A $500 scholarship would require a value of $12,500 for the fund.
Not all at once: Donors may start a fund and let it grow over time. The Foundation will invest the fund, beginning at any level, and let it grow to the desired endowment level.Donors can add to their funds over time as well. Remember, all gifts to the GIPS Foundation are tax-deductible.
Pass-through Scholarship: The other option that the GIPS Foundation offers is called a pass-through scholarship. This is a fund that the donor gives each year for their scholarship award. The Foundation processes this award and passes it on to the college or university on behalf of the winning student. There is a nominal fee of $50 per scholarship for this service.
Whether you choose to create an endowed scholarship or a pass-through scholarship, the GIPS Foundation manages all of the details. We offer a comprehensive online application for students. For the review process, we gather approximately 90 volunteers who are assigned to one of 22 groups to review. These volunteers score scholarship applications independently online in a blind process (the fields identifying the student applicants are blocked from the reviewers). The scores are then calculated for each scholarship to reveal a list of ranked potential winners/alternates. This review culminates in an Equity Committee meeting where volunteers assign scholarships using these ranked lists while ensuring that one student doesn’t win an overwhelming majority of the scholarships. At the end of the Equity Committee meeting, the students’ identities are revealed.
At this point, the GIPS Foundation makes scholarship offers to the students and manages the acceptance process. Donors and students are invited to a scholarship reception to meet and get to know one another.
And finally, all scholarship winners must present proof of enrollment in a college, university, or trade school to the GIPS Foundation to have their scholarship released to their school.
At the GIPS Foundation we take pride in the quality of service we provide to donors who want to share their values with future generations through a scholarship fund. We make the process uncomplicated so that YOU can enjoy the satisfaction of investing in students.
Want to build a scholarship fund? Have additional questions?
For more information or to get started with your own legacy scholarship fund complete the form below, or call/email Traci Skalberg at 308-385-5525 ext. 201170; tskalberg@gips.org